


why'd you have to go (and make me like you)

by luceminate



Series: Staubrey Week 2019 [5]
Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Shenanigans, Some Fluff, Some angst, some happy feels, some sads
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-11-13 17:03:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18035612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luceminate/pseuds/luceminate
Summary: Staubrey Week 2019Day 5: Enemies to LoversStacie doesn’t hate her neighbours. Really, she doesn’t. She just hates that the wall separating their apartments is so thin. She hates that she can hear absolutely everything that goes on.She hates that when the noise suddenly stops, she can't stop herself from being curious.Most of all, she hates that she can't stop herself from falling.





	why'd you have to go (and make me like you)

**Author's Note:**

> this one definitely got away from me a little bit.. heh...

Stacie doesn’t hate her neighbours. Really, she doesn’t.

 

She just hates that the wall separating their apartments is so thin. She hates that she can hear absolutely  _ everything  _ that goes on _. _ She hates that when she complains they quieten down for a couple days, only to go back to being the noisiest people alive. She hates that she can hear them laughing while they dance along to terrible 90’s music, their singing just as bad as their song choices, sometimes. Stacie has to admit that Blonde Bitch Number 2 has a nice voice, though; she’s heard her singing when Blond Bitch Number 1 isn’t home.

 

She finds she doesn’t mind those days as much, even if she’s heard more Ace of Base since she moved in than can be considered healthy.

 

Stacie hates that they keep her up most nights; hates that she can hear their bed rocking and banging against her wall, can hear the grunts from Blond Bitch Number 1, closely followed by and exaggerated moan from Number 2.

 

Stacie can hear a fake orgasm anywhere.

 

(That one tidbit of information gives Stacie a smug kind of satisfaction every time she sees the couple).

 

Most of all, Stacie hates how they remind her every day of how lonely she is. 

 

So, maybe she starts bringing people back to her place more often than she used to back in college. Racks up a few Friends With Benefits who are more than happy to aid Stacie in her revenge. She makes sure to be as loud as possible and she knows they can hear her because Blonde Bitch Number 2 switches between not being able to look at her, to shooting her a scathing glare, while Number 1 smirks at her every time they bump into each other in the hallway.

 

Which:  _ gross. _

 

Her plan of revenge quickly backfires, however, when her neighbours somehow get even  _ noisier,  _ which Stacie didn’t even think was possible.

 

Stacie soon realises she has started a War.

 

And, okay, maybe Stacie actually  _ does _ hate her neighbours. 

 

But, who can blame her? All she wanted was to be able to sleep in peace, and now she’s started a War, and she’ll be damned if she’s the one that loses.

 

*

 

Stacie decided to twist things up a few weeks into The War by having a few friends around for a party; her noisiest, rowdiest, ‘have been kicked out of half the bars in New York due to their shenanigans’ friends. Who have also invited their own, equally as boisterous, friends.

 

It was perfect.

 

She had Fat Amy and Cynthia Rose in charge of the alcohol, knowing the duo could get every single person at this party drunk within the hour. Two hours max. The drunker people got the louder they get.

 

Beca, of course, was put in charge of DJing the whole thing, because even if this whole thing was just a ploy to annoy her neighbours she still wanted people to enjoy themselves and have fun. Lilly had helped Beca set up a pretty decent sound system and booth, and if they noticed Stacie subtly turn one of the smaller speakers towards the wall, they didn’t comment on it.

 

Stacie had put Flo and Emily in charge of greeting people as they walked through the door and directing them directly to the booze, making sure the makeshift dance floor was always occupied, and manning the Karaoke machine that had manifested from seemingly nowhere halfway through the night.

 

She has no idea where it came from but she’s certainly not complaining when Amy steps up with a very pitchy, very  _ loud _ , rendition of Miley Cyrus’ ‘Wrecking Ball’. Which was quickly followed by some dude named Bumper’s questionable version of ‘What’s Love Got To Do With It’.

 

It takes approximately five minutes after the last round of shots for things to get out of hand and Stacie just lets things happen, too drunk and too pleased with herself to care.

 

She’s awoken the next morning by a loud banging on her front door, checking her clock with bleary eyes she notes it’s just gone 9 in the morning, meaning she’d had a meagre four hours sleep since the last of the party stragglers had left. With a loud groan she grabs a pillow and holds it over her head with a prayer for the knocking to stop, groaning louder when it persists.

 

Stacie huffs and rips her sheets away from her body, putting on a robe and grumbling the whole way to her front door. She takes a quick glance at the mirror by the entryway, grimacing when she looks as hungover as she feels, and pulls her hair into a messy bun to present at least  _ some _ semblance of togetherness before she opens the door.

 

Hey eyes open comically wide when she sees Blonde Bitch Number 2 at the door, her fist still raised as she’d been interrupted mid knock. Stacie takes a moment to take in her appearance, noting the soft curl of her hair over her shoulder, the light blue jumper that complements her skin tone, and the poorly concealed dark circles under her eyes.

 

Stacie would’ve felt bad if the blonde hadn’t woken her up at 9am on a Saturday, hadn’t been keeping her up most nights since she moved in months ago.

 

“I’m sorry, did I wake you?” Her tone is seemingly apologetic but her expression is anything but; it screams smug satisfaction. 

 

She knows exactly what she’s doing. 

 

“Bless your heart, you look absolutely exhausted.” Stacie narrows her eyes and recognises the slight twang in the blonde’s accent, knows enough from going to college in Georgia for four years to know she’s just been insulted in the most polite way possible. 

 

“What do you want?” Stacie asks, having no desire to waste time with pleasantries or politeness or participating in the battle the blonde is obviously trying to engage her in. All she wants to do is to go curl up in her bed and wallow in self-pity for a few hours. Maybe she’d migrate to the couch and catch up with  _ Grey’s Anatomy _ .

 

The blonde startles at the bluntness of Stacie’s question and she doesn’t even try to hide the smugness from her smirk to have caught Blonde Bitch Number 2 off guard.

 

“Your mail was posted into our box and I was just returning it.” Explains the blonde and it’s at that moment Stacie notices the envelopes in her neighbours hands and accepts them once they’ve been handed to her.

 

“Is that all?” Stacie inquires when she notices the blonde not budging from her doorway, notices how her neighbour schools her expression from the frown she’d been sporting into the faux polite facade Stacie had grown accustomed to.

 

“If you wouldn’t mind as to have the common courtesy to warn us the next time you decide to have a kegger into the early hours of the morning, that would be wonderful.” She says with the most condescending smile.

 

Stacie’s eyebrow arches at the passive aggressiveness being displayed and she has to bite her tongue to keep from taking the bait, she’s not going to indulge the blonde.

 

“My bad.” She says with not one ounce of remorse. “I’ll be  _ sure  _ to warn you guys next time.” With that she slams the door in the blonde’s face, has to stuff her fist in her mouth to muffle the laugh that wants to escape at the indignant huff she hears on the other side of the door, only letting it out once she hears another door slam.

 

Stacie’s laughter is cut off moments later when she hears the telltale squeak of a bed frame, followed soon after by the banging of said bed frame against the wall, and to top it all off, Blond Bitch Number 1 seemed to be  _ really  _ enjoying himself.

 

“Oh, c’mon!”

 

*

 

They’ve reached a stalemate.

 

Stacie continues to have parties every other weekend, continues to “forget” to warn her neighbours beforehand, and continues to be woken up in the early hours of the morning after by and indignant blonde with an axe to grind.

 

But she’s just  _ so _ tired.

 

She stopped inviting her bed buddies back to her place two weeks ago because the effort just wasn’t worth it. She was losing more than she was gaining. Mainly sleep.

 

She was on the verge of conceding defeat, prepared to wave a white flag and pray for them to come to some compromise. She was even prepared to foot the bill of having the wall reinforced with something to muffle the noise.

 

When one day the noise stopped.

 

*

 

“Do you guys hear that?” Stacie asked her friends, who were all sat around her living room, enjoying a rare quiet night in. 

 

By “friends” she means Beca and Cynthia Rose, the only two she can trust to respect her wishes of a quiet night in and they’re generally quiet people when not under the influence of alcohol. She just doesn’t have the energy for anymore parties, especially not the fallout that follows the following morning.

 

Beca looked around as if she was missing something, her eyebrows drawn together as she shoots Stacie a sideways glance. She turns to Cynthia Rose who just shrugs, though her expression matches Beca’s own and they seem to be having a silent conversation of who’s going to broach the subject.

 

Cynthia Rose leans back in her chair and makes a sweeping motion with her hand for Beca to take the reins. 

 

“Uh, Stace?” Beca cautions, “is that a trick question?” Stacie rolls her eyes.

 

“I’m serious, do you hear that?” She asks again, staring pointedly at Beca and Cynthia Rose. The former just shrugs at her with a slightly perturbed expression, and the latter who shakes her head.

 

“I don’t hear anything.” Cynthia Rose offers, and Stacie claps her hands together, causing Beca to jump in her seat and nearly spill her drink.

 

“Exactly!” She jumps from her seat and walks over to her wall, pressing her ear against it as she listens for something,  _ anything _ . When she doesn’t hear anything she pulls away with a frown, missing the worried glances her friends share behind her back.

 

“I haven’t heard anything this week.” Stacie offers as an explanation when she turns around and finds her friends staring at her with worry and curiosity written over their faces. She quirks her eyebrow and places a hand on her hip, the other making a rolling gesture as she waits for the penny in the air to drop.

 

Beca’s face is the first to show any sign of understanding as her eyes widen and her jaw drops, an  _ ‘oh!’ _ slipping past her lips, and Stacie nods excessively as Beca’s confused expression morphs into one of comprehension.

 

“Hold up.” Cynthia Rose raises her hands, gesturing between her friends as she tries to connect the dots. “What exactly are you saying?”

 

“Blonde Bitch Number 1 and 2 haven’t made a sound all week.” She explains.

 

“Dude, do you even know their names?” Stacie’s guilty grimace at Beca’s accusatory stare and statement and that’s all the answer they need.

 

“I know the guy’s name is either James or Jamie.” She bites her lip, trying to remember if she’d  _ ever _ known the other woman’s name. “I think the girl’s name starts with a B? I heard him yell  _ ‘oh, Bree’  _ a lot when they were in the bedroom.” She offers with a shrug, laughing at the disgusted look that instantly takes over Beca’s face, narrowly dodging the cushion being thrown at her.

 

“Dude, gross!”

 

*

 

Weeks turn into a month and Stacie still hasn’t heard anything from the apartment next door. She knows someone is still living there, or that her neighbours still own the apartment, at least, because of the simple fact it wasn’t being advertised as vacant. 

 

Stacie had dismissed the first week or two of silence as the couple being away on vacation somewhere. Probably scarring even more people with their loud, boring sex and awful music choices.

 

Except, those two weeks had turned into a month and there was still no sign of life next door and Stacie couldn’t dismiss it as a vacation anymore. She was confused to say the least and curious to say the most.

 

As much as she was enjoying the silence, there was a nagging in the bag of her mind that something was amiss. When the nagging wouldn’t leave her mind in the days following, she set herself up in the lobby of her building, and waited. 

 

She was joined soon after by Mrs. Williams who lived on the same floor as Stacie but at the other side of the hall. She was an older woman in her sixties and was friendly enough, if not a bit of a gossip monger, but Stacie was a bit of a gossip herself so she didn’t mind.

 

Mrs. Williams was in the middle of filling her in on the latest drama from a few floors below them when she stopped talking, her face adopting a sorrowful expression. Stacie followed her gaze and lo and behold, Blonde Bitch Number 2 was making her way through the lobby, making a beeline for the mailbox.

 

Except, she didn’t look like a bitch at all in that moment. Her shoulders were slumped, her head looked like it had a weight attached to it, and she looked completely dishevelled and out of sorts. A cloud of gloom seemed to follow her as she slammed her mailbox closed, instantly shoving one of the envelopes into a nearby trash can, and stalked around the corner, presumably to the elevators.

 

The usual grace and poise she usually carried herself with was completely absent and if Stacie hadn’t lived next to her for nearly a year she would not have recognised her at all. 

 

“Oh, that poor soul.” Mrs. Williams spoke, breaking Stacie out of her reverie.

 

“What happened?” She couldn’t stop herself from asking, her gaze once again falling to where the blonde had disappeared to, a frown tugging at her lips, her brow creased as she tried to associate the woman she’d just seen to the woman who knocked on her door every Saturday morning after one of Stacie’s parties to lament about “common courtesy” and “decency.”

 

“You haven’t heard?” She shakes her head, causing the elderly woman to look at her in shock. “Aren’t you neighbours?” She nods. “And you didn’t hear anything?” She shakes her head again, because as thin as the walls are and as much as people in this building like to gossip, she really has not heard anything in regard to her neighbours.

 

“That poor girl, you know her fiance?” Stacie nods, the news of the couple actually being engaged a surprise. She really did not know her neighbours. “Well, just over a month ago they got into this huge argument, a real yelling match if I ever heard one... Are you sure you didn’t hear anything? I’ve lived in this building for some time, honey, and these walls are anything but soundproof.”

 

“I must have been out that day.” She shrugs.

 

“Well, there was yelling, Nina in the apartment opposite swears she heard things being thrown around… Anyway, it turns out that that lowlife of a man has been having multiple affairs behind that poor girl’s back for  _ years _ .”

 

“And she didn’t know?” Stacie can’t stop herself from asking, not sure why the thought even slipped into her mind.

 

“Honey, do you think someone as strong willed as Aubrey would stick around if they knew?” She shook her head absentmindedly, her mind belatedly registering the reveal of her neighbours name.

 

_ Aubrey, huh? Suits her. _

 

“She kicked him to the curb, rightfully so, and rumour has it she dumped a bunch of his possessions out of the window and into the street. Good for her, if you ask me. That man wasted five years of her life.”

 

_ Five years? _

 

It was at that moment that Stacie realised she really didn’t know the people she had shared a wall with for the better part of a year. With that though, she excused herself, shooting Mrs. Williams a polite smile before headed towards the elevators.

 

She took the moment of solitude on the ride up to process all of the information that she had just received. Her neighbours had been together for five years and had moved in together and gotten engaged during that time. Blonde Bitch Number 2’s name was actually Aubrey and Blond Bitch Number 1 was an absolute asshole who had cheated multiple times on someone he had made a commitment to, subsequently dissolving all connections between the two.

 

(Stacie made a mental note to stop referring to  _ Aubrey _ as the awful nickname she’d given her and elected to rename Blond Bitch Number 1 as  _ ‘World’s Biggest Asshole’. _ )

 

When Stacie reached her floor she hesitated in front of Aubrey’s door, raising a fist to knock, before thinking better of it and making her way to her own apartment, being sure to be as quiet as possible.

 

*

 

Another week passes before Stacie hears any noise from next door and she was a mix of grateful at finally hearing any kind of life from next door and devastated because the noise she was hearing was a type of sobbing filled with anguish and heartbreak. Stacie can feel her own eyes mist over because as much as she alleged to hate Aubrey at the start, she couldn’t stand to hear anyone so distraught.

 

No one deserves to cry like their whole world is crumbling around them.

 

Mind made up, Stacie slips on some shoes, grabs her keys, and makes her way out for her apartment and steps over to Aubrey’s door. She raises a hand, hesitates for a moment, before she shakes her head and knocks. 

 

She immediately takes notice of how the sobs stop for a second, before they become muffled. They’re harder to hear from outside her apartment, but Stacie can tell that Aubrey is trying to quieten herself, is trying to stop herself from crying, and Stacie’s heart simultaneously breaks and goes out to her.

 

She stands there for a moment before she knocks again, and waits, and waits, and waits until she can’t hear anything from the apartment anymore. She repeats this process for the next few minutes before she finally gives in, presses her ear up to the door, and calls out to the apartment’s sole occupant.

 

“Aubrey?” Nothing. “Aubrey, please open the door.” She near pleads with the blonde. She hears shuffling getting closer the more she calls out. “Please, I’ve been knocking for like ten minutes.” The apartment goes silent again and Stacie takes a deep breath. “I swear to God I’ll-”

 

The door swings open and Stacie’s words die in her throat at the sight in front of her.

 

Aubrey’s cheeks are gaunt, her skin has taken on a grey pallor, and the t-shirt she’s wearing hangs off of her in a way that makes it obvious that she’s lost a significant amount of weight that isn’t as obvious when she’s dressed in her usual work attire. 

 

Stacie would have knocked sooner if she’d seen this earlier.

 

“What do you want?” Her voice lacks its usual bite, lacks the undercurrent of strength and confidence. She sounded as tired as she looked and Stacie’s chest ached at the complete one eighty this woman’s life has taken in the last month and a half.

 

Stacie doesn’t know what possesses her to say what she does next, this had not been her plan when she’d left her own apartment, not that she’d actually had any plan, but her mouth works faster than her brain and she finds herself asking:

 

“Do you want to maybe grab some coffee?”

 

Aubrey looks at her tiredly, her eyes dull.

 

“Do I look like I’m ready to go anywhere?” She makes a sweeping gesture towards her state of dress, the disdain at herself obvious, and she sighs, her gaze dropping from Stacie’s. “I don’t need your pity.” She murmurs and steps backwards to get ready to close her door, but Stacie reaches a hand out to stop her.

 

Aubrey’s eyes glue themselves to where Stacie’s hand is and she looks on the verge of crying but Stacie doesn’t retract her hand until the blonde shoots her a pleading look, her bottom lip caught between her teeth and she’s biting down so  _ hard  _ that Stacie takes her hand off the door like it burned her.

 

“Sorry.” She utters, her tone genuinely apologetic, and Aubrey looks grateful for a moment before she closes the door.

 

Stacie doesn’t hear any more crying after that incident and she could kick herself.

 

She knocks on Aubrey’s door every other day for the rest of the week but either the blonde isn’t home or doesn’t want to see her and Stacie can’t blame her.

 

*

 

It’s by chance that Stacie bumps into the blonde a few days later, she nearly knocks her over and is apologising profusely before she even knows who she’s talking to. She helps her dust off her clothes and when she looks up to see who she’d practically body slammed, she pauses when she sees Aubrey.

 

“Hey.” She smiles, genuinely happy to see her out and about, even if the gloomy cloud is still looming over her.

 

Aubrey takes a moment longer to recover, nodding in recognition and acknowledgement as she side steps Stacie, intent on walking away, but the brunette has other ideas as she breathes out a  _ ‘wait’  _ and reaches out a hand and reaches to hold Aubrey’s, halting the blonde’s movement.

 

“Seeing as you’re dressed for the outside world, how about we get some coffee?” She asks, unable to keep the hopefulness out of her voice as she nods her head to the coffee shop they’d coincidentally bumped into each other outside of. 

 

Aubrey’s about to protest but Stacie tugs on her hand.

 

“C’mon, it’s practically fate.” 

 

Aubrey can’t find it in herself to argue.

 

*

 

Their coffee dates become a regular occurrence. 

 

When Stacie had knocked on Aubrey’s door a couple days after their first outing and extended another invitation, Stacie was shocked when the blonde had agreed without much argument.

 

The first coffee date had been awkward to say the least, Aubrey not offering much in terms of conversation, and Stacie didn’t push, instead opting for the safe topic of work. She’d mostly spoken about her current research projects, telling silly anecdotes about some of her coworkers. Aubrey hadn’t said much more about her job than that she owned a chain of retreats for the corporate elites to go and work on their team building.

 

When them going out to get coffee becomes a regular habit, they’d elected Mondays and Thursdays as their coffee days, and the more time they spent together, the more she got to know Aubrey, the more she found herself looking forward to those days.

 

The more she became to determined to get the blonde to smile.

 

*

 

They were cooped up in their regular corner, in their regular coffee shop, both focusing on different items of paperwork in front of them.

 

Some days Aubrey would meet her at the coffee shop, sit down across from her, set out paperwork and get to work, obviously not in the mood to talk but not wanting to be by herself. After a few times of this happening, Stacie began bringing her tablet or her own research papers just in case, understanding that some days Aubrey just didn’t want to talk. 

 

Some days Stacie would pretend to work while she sat and observed the blonde in front of her. The colour had gradually been coming back to her cheeks the more she got back into her normal routine, and she’d slowly been putting the weight she’d lost back on, though it was taking longer for her to gain it than it did to lose it.

 

Aubrey had admitted to her it was because on most days she didn’t have an appetite, wouldn’t elaborate further on the  _ why _ , but promised Stacie that she was trying.

 

And that was enough for her.

 

They’d yet to breach the subject of their sudden friendship, or their past animosity, and the reason behind all of it. Stacie was perfectly okay with that. She’d been getting to know Aubrey, the real Aubrey, for five months now, and knew that Aubrey would open up to her in time.

 

She just had to be patient.

 

Stacie noticed Aubrey stop working out of the corner of her eye and lean back in her chair, her hand reaching to fiddle with the small pendant that rested around her neck, a nervous habit, as she looked wistfully out of the window. 

 

It was raining heavily, the heavens having opened, flooding the world below. A certain type of melancholia would wash over Aubrey on days like these, but she never commented; understood that the blonde had been through so much in the last few months and the last thing she needed was her former enemy turned friend pushing and prodding.

 

“You know, the irony is that I knew he never loved me as much as I loved him.” Aubrey whispers, breaking the easy silence between them, her teary gaze lingering on a couple stood just outside, huddled together as they shared an umbrella, laughing despite the predicament they found themselves in.

 

Stacie froze, her pen hovering over her paper as she processes what Aubrey just told her.

 

“I don’t know when we fell out of love, but it happened.” She continued, her voice quiet yet purposeful and Stacie recognised the moment for what it was: Aubrey finally opening up to her. “I still loved him, though, you know? Even if I haven’t been  _ in love _ with him for quite some time.” Stacie nodded, urging her to continue. Aubrey released a sad sigh, making brief eye contact before reverting her gaze to the window.

 

“And yet,” Her voice cracked, “and yet I was still surprised when I found out he’d been sleeping with every woman in his department and their friends.” She laughs despite herself, the self-deprecation clear in her tone, and it quickly turned into a sob, Stacie was out of her seat in an instant, sliding into Aubrey’s side of the booth and just holding her.

 

*

 

Aubrey misses the next two coffee dates and ignores all of Stacie’s attempts to get in contact with her; doesn’t answer the door until a week later, looking as devastated as that first time Stacie had knocked on her door.

 

Stacie doesn’t miss a beat before she steps forward and engulfs the blonde in a hug, Aubrey clinging on to her like her life depended on it as she dissolves into the same heartbreaking sobs.

 

She walks them into the apartment, already mildly familiar with her surroundings having had dinner with Aubrey a few times, and leads them over to the couch.

 

They sit like that for hours, Stacie holding Aubrey in her arms, whispering soothing words, offering quiet reassurances, gently carding her fingers through blonde hair as she lets Aubrey cry it out until she feels ready to talk about it.

 

“It was our anniversary.” She croaks, her throat sore from all the crying. Stacie nods in understanding, reassures her she wasn’t angry at her for her absence, that she was just worried, that it’s okay for her to be upset about this, and proceeds to holds her tighter.

 

Stacie stays with her for the rest of the night, the both of them moving to Aubrey’s room when the blonde asks her to stay; not wanting to spend the rest of the night alone, and Stacie holds her throughout the night. 

 

That night serves as a turning point in their relationship.

 

Aubrey becomes more forthcoming, lets Stacie in more and more, starts going back to what Stacie assumes is the person she was before all of this happened.

 

And Stacie, well, Stacie realises she’s fucked.

 

Because she’s in love with Aubrey - and she can’t have her.

 

*

 

Stacie tries to act normal after her little self-discovery. 

 

She can’t believe the constant turn of events her life has been for the past six months. She’s gone from being enemies with her noisy neighbour, to being her friend, to being in love with and willing to do absolutely anything for her. 

 

She’d literally come over to Aubrey’s apartment at three in the morning because the blonde had called her in a panic over a spider.  _ A spider. _

 

It was ridiculous.

 

But the hug Aubrey gave her as thanks and the kiss she received on her cheek as a goodbye made it all worth it.

 

She was screwed.

 

*

 

Stacie somehow manages to successfully hide her feelings for another month before it becomes obvious that Aubrey has caught on to the fact that something is wrong, because Stacie has begun to pull away, limits their physical contact to short and quick hugs.

 

She can’t help the fact that being so close to Aubrey hurts, sometimes. That being able to hug her but not hold her every night leaves her feeling empty; reminds her of a time where she felt so lonely because of a certain couple that she’d set out on a revenge mission.

 

Reminds her of a time when she  _ hated  _ Aubrey.

 

And that breaks her heart more than anything.

 

What Stacie hadn’t anticipated was how much her pulling away had affected the blonde.

 

They’re sitting at Stacie’s kitchen counter, eating a light dinner with plans to watch movies for the rest of the night, when Aubrey brings it up.

 

“Have I done something?” Stacie hears her ask, watches as she curls into herself, her gaze fixated on her fidgeting hands, the posture and attitude all too reminiscent of the woman Aubrey had been seven months ago when she was a mere shell of herself.

 

This is exactly what Stacie had tried  _ so hard  _ to avoid. She never wanted for Aubrey to feel like she had to go on the defence with her, that she had to hide herself away and prepare for the worst; prepare to be abandoned.

 

“No, of course not.” She tries to reassure, watches as Aubrey’s gaze meets her own with a simmering fire, it sends a shiver down her spine to see Aubrey steel herself for whatever disaster she thinks Stacie is going to throw at her.

 

“Please excuse me for not believing that.” No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t hide the waver in her voice, the underlying insecurity making itself as clear as day.

 

“I swear.” Stacie runs a hand through her hair, sighing, “you haven’t done anything.”

 

She didn’t want to have to do this, didn’t want to have this conversation, didn’t want this to be the reason she lost Aubrey. 

 

(Ideally, she wouldn’t be losing Aubrey at all, but that fantasy seems to be fading faster and faster).

 

Stacie doesn’t expect the scoff that leaves the blonde’s mouth, doesn’t expect her to stand up and away from the counter, her arms crossed protectively over her chest, sending a half-hearted glare her way.

 

“I must have done something. People don’t just go from one extreme to the other without reason.” There are tears in both of their eyes and Stacie knows that she can’t leave this situation without telling Aubrey how she feels; won’t say something to hurt the blonde just to protect her secret. She’ll leave the decision up to Aubrey if she wants to stay or leave.

 

Aubrey deserves to be able to make that decision for once.

 

“I always do something to make people leave.” Aubrey whispers and Stacie feels the air leave her lungs at the statement because  _ no _ .

 

“Aubrey, no.” She implores, trying to reach for the blonde, to hold her, to do  _ anything _ , but Aubrey just takes a step back, her arms wrapped around herself tightening impossibly, her knuckles white around her upper arms. Stacie steps away as if she’d been scorned, backing up into the kitchen counter.

 

“Please just tell me what I did and I’ll go.” Aubrey murmurs, all the fight having left her voice and her stance, instead she seems resigned and detached from the situation.

 

“You haven’t done anything!” Stacie yells in a panic, can’t help the sob that leaves her lips, rests her hands on the counter behind her to keep herself upright, her fingers wrapping around the edge. All the muscles in her body are tense as she prepares herself for the inevitable fallout of what she’s about to say because, despite what Aubrey believes, Stacie knows she’s not going to be the one who leaves; knows she’s the one who’s going to be heartbroken.

 

“Aubrey…” She bites her lip, hard, as she shuts her eyes as tightly as possible, sucking in a deep breath to muster up enough courage to say:

 

“I love you.”

 

Stacie doesn’t miss the gasp that escapes Aubrey’s lips, doesn’t miss the step that Aubrey takes before she falters, and lets her chin fall to her chest in defeat as she finally lets the tears fall.

 

“What?” Aubrey’s voice is small, barely there, but there’s something to it that makes Stacie look up, sees something in Aubrey’s wide-eyed gaze she doesn’t know how to place.

 

“I’m in love with you.” She exhales, lets the pressure leave her chest with the confession.

 

Aubrey shakes her head, looking down briefly before she meets Stacie’s eyes, a twinkle in them that Stacie had never seen before.

 

“Say it again?” She asks, a hopeful lilt in her voice and Stacie grins.

 

This is not at all where she thought this conversation was going and she’s sure she can say the same for Aubrey.

 

“I’m in love with you.” She says as quietly as Aubrey had asked, and the smile that spreads across Aubrey’s face makes Stacie’s heart burst in her chest and before she can comprehend what is happening, Aubrey’s lips are on her own and her hands are cupping her cheeks.

 

Stacie wraps her arms around her waist, hugging her as tightly to herself as possible. She can’t quite believe what’s happening when Aubrey pulls away, tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear and lets her hand slide to the back of the brunettes head, and pulls her in for another, softer, kiss.

 

“I love you, too.” Aubrey whispers between kisses and Stacie pulls away, casts her a cautious look.

 

“Are you sure?” She can’t help but ask.

 

Aubrey laughs as she nods, her smile the widest and most genuine Stacie has seen since she first started getting to know her.

 

She doesn’t think she’s ever seen anything so beautiful.

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> thank you to everyone who has been leaving comments and kudos! they've been filling my heart with joy and motivating me to follow through with finishing this whole week, so thank you!
> 
> please continue to let me know what y'all think :D


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